My book for our novels unit is 'Boys Without Names,' which focuses on 11-year old Gopal as he and his family uproot from their rural Indian village and travel to Mumbai. Along the way, he is tricked and taken to a sweatshop, where he is now working as a child labor force, gluing endless beads to picture frames. Gopal's Mumbai is huge and overwhelming; people jammed into every corner, vendors offering countless wares, and small outskirts of houses and shacks for living in.
Gopal's not far off from our Mumbai today, actually; Mumbai is crowded and noisy, and vendors can be seen from the streets offering goods. However, one thing that Gopal's Mumbai didn't have was modern child labor protection.
Children have been trafficked and forced to work in hotels, sweatshops, and factories in Mumbai (and in so, so many other places) and have had no way of stopping their own enslavement. Now, thanks to the Indian government, laws have been passed to help protect children from young labor and an anti-trafficking unit has been formed to arrest traffickers and slave owners. Though legislation helping children is still weak, bills have been sent to Parliament asking for more protection; and have been taken into serious consideration recently, seeing as there are roughly 35,000 kids in child labor sites in just Mumbai, let alone any other cities in India.
I can't even begin to imagine myself in Gopal's shoes. For an eleven year old boy who has little education other than reading, writing, and math, and who has never had more than ten articles of clothing at a time, he's a very wise kid. Think for a moment about summer without air conditioning, or working outside during cold or rain with only a ratty t shirt and a pair of dingy shorts. For what little he has, Gopal makes the most out of every situation. He uses a lot o his mother's lessons to stay out of trouble and plan in the sweatshop, and unlike him I would never be able to keep my mouth shut if I were to be taken. Gopal has so far completely surpassed me in the area of surviving in his environment, and I'm excited to see what he does next! Would you do as well as Gopal if you were placed in his position?
I know that if I were in his situation, I would barely survive for a minute. I 1. have grown up in a place where I have had as much as I needed, and 2. I am not nearly as clever as Gopal and I would not be able to do what he did. Also, in situations where I don't have much food or I'm hungry, I'm extremely crabby. Gopal barely got any food when he was in the sweatshop, and he was working all day. It's so terrible that there are still SO many sweatshops and things like that all around the world, and so many kids have to work so hard every day. I think Gopal did a very good job at staying level-headed and calm in the situation is in, because I know I wouldn't be able to do that!
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